The Fire Incident
The fire broke out at 5:10 pm. According to reports, it was caused when a 1000 kVA electricity transformer, maintained by the Delhi Vidyut Board (electricity Board) (DVB), and housed in the theatre’s overcrowded basement car park, burst, and engulfed some 20 cars, where some 36 cars were parked instead of the admissible 18. The fire eventually spread to the five-storey building which housed the cinema hall and several offices. Most of the victims were trapped on the balcony and died due to suffocation as they tried to reach dimly marked exits to escape the smoke and fire. and found the doors locked.
An off-duty Capt. Manjinder Singh Bhinder of the 61st Cavalry of the Indian army and a talented horse-rider, out celebrating his success at a recent national games with his family and a junior officer at the movie hall, gave his and his family's lives up saving over a 150 people, on his personal initiative.
Rushing out along with his family at first, realising the gravity of the unfolding tragedy, he and his people went back inside, and tried to set order and guide people out to safety.
Fire services were delayed due to the heavy evening traffic and the location of the cinema hall, situated in one of the busiest areas of South Delhi. At least 48 fire tenders were pressed into service at 5.20 p.m. and it took them over an hour to put out the fire. Later the dead and the injured were rushed to the nearby All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and Safdarjung Hospital, where scenes of chaos and pandemonium followed, as relatives and family members of the victims scurried around to look for known faces.
A small fire had earlier broken out in the morning hours in the electrical transformer, which was soon put out and repairs carried out by DVB officials. Hours later oil spilled from the transformer and caught fire.
Read more about this topic: Uphaar Cinema Fire
Famous quotes containing the words fire and/or incident:
“I thought I alone suffered,
but suffering is everywhere.
When I went on the housetop
I saw its fire in every home.”
—Farid (13th cent.)
“Every incident connected with the breaking up of the rivers and ponds and the settling of the weather is particularly interesting to us who live in a climate of so great extremes. When the warmer days come, they who dwell near the river hear the ice crack at night with a startling whoop as loud as artillery, as if its icy fetters were rent from end to end, and within a few days see it rapidly going out. So the alligator comes out of the mud with quakings of the earth.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)